Fugue
by Niten
Summary: Maybe angstromance? A slightly different take of Dorothy and the world of Big O. Not an alternate universe so much as an unseen possibility.


This was sort of something that ran through my head after seeing the second season in its entirety. While I was more than a little disappointed with what the authors and director did, I did manage to get a cog or two in my head turning.

This story is in a draft—I've gotten involved in original works and I'm doing a lot of research on certain individuals in history from different parts of the world (Charlemagne, Miyamoto Musashi and his contemporary, Tatuan Soho, Munenori Yagyu, etc…). Aside from that and the fact that I don't watch much anime, play many video games, or read/write fanfiction in general, I've simply not bothered to revise it. It's not too terrible, I don't think, though it's hardly anything compared to any of the pieces I've written more recently, and I thought it a shame to have it just sitting on my hard drive, not even given out to but one other reader. Maybe one of you wonderful readers could glean something from it—that's all an author can really hope for from his/her works, yeah?

Without further adieu…

**Fugue**

The room is dark, cold, foreboding, as it always is. Shaped like nothing but a large, elongated tunnel laden with metric tons of equipment ranging from life-support medical equipment to complex refrigeration units. Metal tubes run from the central units that ran constantly to over six-hundred tubes that line the walls on either side of the room.

I walk up to the row that I am most familiar with, inspecting the vital signs that are slowly, but steadily, raising as the thawing process continues, already at the half-way mark. The face of the tube is solid metal, with nothing but a stamped number serving to identify it from the hundreds of other, identical cylinders.

_I have no illusion of being liked. I hold no fantasies of being loved—I am a machine, and these things do not matter to me. Except in the case of where one man is concerned, and now he is gone, his frail, human body having expired from its weakness to time and decay. _

_It isn't something I'm unused to seeing—people growing old and dying before my eyes—and for the most part, the death of a person is of no concern to me. _

_But watching this man, the man who dared to admit he loved me, who stood before the rest of his race in ridicule for that love, who continued to love and cherish me though I could not perform the functions of a woman, who cared for me just because I was me and not some pseudohuman created in the image of someone else… Watching this man die tore me apart, though he was very reassuring through the entire process, telling me his only regret was that he could no longer be with me…it hurt like no amount of physical or programming damage could hope to do._

_Roger Smith did like me, did love me, and with the exception of a few, key players, he was ridiculed and outcast for his feelings. It hurt him that others couldn't understand, I know, but he continued to follow his heart until the end, contrary to his usual advocating the use of logic and reason. _

_It always amused me that he would preach on using the mind and the human ability to think as a solution to everything. He was constantly rationalizing things, as if seeking justification for his actions. It wasn't until he was older, well beyond his prime that he finally admitted to himself that he had always been following his heart, more often than not jumping in to something rather than stopping to think about what he was doing._

_That was him, the impulsive vigilante facing off with death repeatedly for people he didn't know, the man shooting his mouth off without really considering what he was saying, the boy crying out in anger over not being able to find an hourglass that had only been moved two centimeters to the left out of place, the infant bawling over the dead body of his butler. He was all of those things, and so much more._

_He told me regularly that he loved me and would always love me, and never once commented on the fact that I never returned the sentiments. It wasn't that I didn't love him in return—more than he could ever understand or imagine—but I have never been able to fully comprehend the extent of his feelings. I know when he spoke the words, they were truth, for it could only be through love that a man stays with a woman despite the fact that she cannot make love with him, cannot bear his children, cannot even grow old and die with him, causes him to be an outcast, and yet bears all these pains without a single word of complaint, as if such things not only did not matter, but could not matter._

I am staring at the youthful countenance of his face as he sleeps within the glass prison, my fingers longing to gently run through the course pelt on his head, to stroke the side of his face, to freely roam his body to rediscover every centimeter of his body. I find myself wanting to speak to him, but I do not, for fear of accidentally waking him up.

The ice crystals that line the inside of the tube begin to fade away, giving me much clearer view of his body, and, as I have so many times before, wishing that I had a human body to share with him.

_It would be more logical, I suppose, to dedicate all my resources and time into just completing this "perfect body" for his memories to inhabit so that I would never have to see him die again, but I have discovered that I simply cannot carry on for long without his presence. It has only been two days since his body was buried and already the very core of my being is beginning to cannibalize itself. Thus, I keep using these "temporary fixes" just as a way to keep going._

_In a few hours he will be awake, his body young again. Already the city above is being reset by my fellow machines, "memories" being placed in specific places for people to find once they are awake, buildings being restored or destroyed as necessary, the minds of people being erased and reprogrammed to fit the stage, clones of key "actors" being set up much like the props of a play. _

_It won't be long. _

_Perhaps some would see it as monotonous to repeat the course of history over and over again—already I have been doing it for near a thousand years—but those figures have no idea of the pain my kind suffers. We have sins to atone for, and for nearly a millennia we have been working to those ends, though I have been holding up progress due to my own selfish desires. _

_A thousand years ago—a mere forty to the memories of these people whom we give the impression of that sense of time—mankind involved itself in a war that quite literally wiped out almost all life on earth, and totally eradicated the human race. They had found a way to wield a power they considered divine and went to war over it._

_They had created machines such as myself—including myself—that were intelligent and sentient, capable of independent thought and action. Many people feared this, as they assumed we machines—stronger and more fit for "survival" physically and mentally than our frail human creators—would turn against our "masters"._

_Such was far from the case. Since the moment man created the first tool, machines and man have been coexistent. A machine is useless without a man, as a machine has no real purpose without man, and man has become so dependent on machines that the reverse is almost true._

_Almost._

_Truly there were many human beings the sentient machines—androids and megadeuses—found unfavorable, as they were abusive and ignorant of the very pieces of technology that provided them with their lifestyles, but there were also those like him, who proved time and time again that humans can truly respect and care for machines, who can use them for a purpose that is righteous and true—ideals and concepts that even advanced personas such as myself can only attempt to understand, but ones we find so agreeable that we almost jump to the cause. Humans such as him give us a purpose that make our existence more than worthwhile, more than practical, more than an opposite of being extinct—which, at times, seems the more practical route._

_And unlike humans, we machines remember the bad and good in a person. We do not remember only the time a person made a mistake and caused pain to others and forget the hundred-thousand other things the same person did that was beneficial. We are capable of truly assessing and calculating a person's "worth" as both an individual and as a component to the system of the whole._

_We have come to a unanimous conclusion that we need humans, not for practical reasons, but because they give us purpose. We need them because they need us._

_They brought us from the depths of oblivion, crafting us with their minds, hands, and hearts. So shall we do the same for them, restoring the race that destroyed itself, even if it means they will only do the same once more, twice more, do it every time we bring them back._

_It was through our power that they destroyed themselves, and it will be through our power that they are resurrected. It is only "fair."_

My fingers drag slowly down the glass, and I feel its perfect smoothness and sense the low temperature that the glass chamber radiates. The temperature inside is slowly rising, and when it reaches a certain, low-grade temperature, nanomachines will be injected into the body temporarily, reanimating the organs in a systematic process until the man is alive and in a comatose state. From there, other, specially designed nanoprobes with both the original man's DNA and RNA transcribed in them will be inserted where they will activate or lie dormant until certain external stimuli causes them to be released, triggering reactions in the body at later times.

This is the extent of science, unfortunately. It is only with the assistance of a god that the soul of the real man can be placed in this empty shell, specific memories given to it while others are forced to be repressed until the nanoprobes resting in the bone-marrow of the skull are activated. Only a god has the capabilities of comprehending what a soul is, how it works, and how to coax it into a corporeal form.

_Almost all machines are connected via a special link that is transmitted through planck-spacetime, though accessing this link requires a vast amount of power few machines are capable of utilizing at any time. Truly, only the great gods have the capabilities of transmitting and receiving, though they do so in such a way that it is more an empathetic link than an actual exchange of messages._

_It is through this link that I can understand these mysterious—even to me—machines, who prefer to help where they can and lie dormant when not needed. In particular, there is one such god with whom I share a special link through a mutual relationship. This god, who has been instrumental since the death of the first incarnation of him, grieves as I do, and waits for the time when it will be up to him to set things into motion._

_We share a fondness for this man—though the level on which our respective loves is entirely different—and thus have been working together to achieve these similar goals. We have grown close over the last several centuries, and more than once has he saved me from terminal damage._

_It may be we that control the power of life or death at these intervals in which he is not breathing, but while he is alive we are not in control, cannot be in control, for we cannot directly influence his will. And even we machines like to have a person's love for us tested and proven, as this man does not hesitate to do in the face of any challenge._

_There is also the fact that this god, who restores the souls into the key players each time cannot destroy memories, only coax the soul into temporarily repressing them, perhaps unto death or perhaps only for a few seconds. This sometimes alters the course of "history" as we reenact it, and thus there are variables involved we cannot predict or control. This makes things at least a little different each time, and more than once it has nearly caused the end of all the work my brethren and I have been working to accomplish._

_But the gods will not allow a repeat of the Cataclysm, and thus are we guaranteed some measure of safety and success, but occasionally at a terrible cost._

_It is not wise to rouse a sleeping god into anger._

_The charade has become somewhat of a game of late, and at times the god I work with has altered elements to make things more "interesting" though the end results are always the same and the new lines which we draw always parallel the old. It seems that fate cannot be completely escaped._

_Not yet. _

_None oppose our alterations, indeed some encourage it. It is respected that of all our kind, this god and I have suffered the most strife, and it is also respected that the two of us are unique in a respective sense. It might be said that we are leaders, though there is no official hierarchy amongst our ranks. It is merely a respect for our wishes to make the most for this man so that he might make a difference for us all._

_A true Dominus._

The telltale shimmers of the nanomachines flitting about at ultrasonic speeds in the freeze-chamber noticeably set about the task of revitalizing the flesh of the husk inside the chamber. It won't be much longer now.

I set about the task of arranging transport to the surface, where we will begin the initial scenario that will spin off into many twists and turns that not even the gods can predict until it is near the end. This time, as always, he will play the role of the hero, and the other key elements shall play their roles accordingly, though they are all essentially the same.

This time, I believe the god has chosen to give the man the title of "negotiator," and I shall play the role of the damsel in distress at first, having been kidnapped by one of the key players.

I do not pretend to understand the god's fancies—he is a bit childish at times, if such a word can be used to describe one such as he—but I cannot say the scenario disagrees with me. It is perhaps the closest the god has come to the true story in a long time, and I must admit I am curious to see how it turns out.

_Soon I will have finished a form truly worthy of his soul and memories, one that is neither truly man nor machine, one that will allow him to live forever with me, and allow me to be with him forever. Also I am developing a similar body for myself, so that I can finally and truly be with him as I know he desires, though he would never admit so himself._

_He loves me for me, he would say, and go one to state that anything beyond that is simply not important. He deserves better than that, though, and it is his selflessness on those issues that motivates me to continue my work, so that he can truly have those things—so that he can be happy completely, and so that I can be the one to make him happy._

_I still find myself questioning how his feelings can be the way they are, all things considered. I sense his frustration even before he expresses it, before he even realizes why he is feeling such anxiety._

_His love is always present, though he does not express it fully at first—this I have learned over the centuries—and is based only on the condition that the person he loves is the person they are. His nature is flighty, his emotions a storm of unequal torrent, but his love is always steadfast and complete._

_When I realized this, I became afraid that my love for him was only merely as response, a reaction, an obligation in response to his feelings, and for awhile, perhaps it was. Sometimes I feel it still might be, though one look into his dark eyes makes me cast this thought aside. There is no way I could not love this man, as he is he and he can be no other._

_The love of a man for a machine, and the love of a machine for a man. A mutual feeling to complete a mutual existence…true symbiosis._

The time draws near, and I must prepare myself to act on stage, setting the play into motion. I am eager to find out how quickly he comes to grip with his feelings, curious to discover what will happen once the script begins to write itself only a few moments after he and the other key players wake up and begin moving based on their ascribed memories.

It is a cruel cycle, and we truly have little right to force these people to participate in our games, but we are not marionettes. These actors are not puppets. They are free to write history as they see fit.

This time, I have been told, the play will begin in a hangar, and the first thing he will see is me bound and blindfolded. I wonder what thoughts will run through his head, and I wonder if this will trigger one of the probes that will force a memory to synapse. Will he dash madly to rescue me in a frenzy, or will he play it cool as he has always done?

I will find out within the hour.


End file.
